


Smoothing the Edges

by faithlethalhane



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Root is Alive, post season 5 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithlethalhane/pseuds/faithlethalhane
Summary: Prompt: Shoot post finale (Root lives of course because that's what totally happened): the two of them try to get back into the pattern of saving numbers without talking about everything that happened, but eventually all the memories of S5 catch up to them. Basically a recovery fic





	

The phone rings in the middle of the street, and you understand the feeling of dull comfort in your chest as you approach. You pull Bear’s leash tighter so he follows, and with a single, sharp inhale, you answer.

The usual dial-tone-like beep answers, but after, there is silence. Long silence, and just when you are about to hang up, you hear her voice.

“Sameen,” she teases, almost singsong over your name. “You hadn’t given up on me, had you?”

There is both a life and a fatigue to her words. You don’t know how you know, but you know. This is…this is her. You are about to speak when she continues.

“We made it,” she murmurs. “Go home for me.”

You hang up, and you cannot contain the grin that spreads across your face. As you turn, you meet the closest camera with your eye. You don’t know if She’s watching, but you owe her more than your life will ever amount to, and you nod once at Her before continuing down the street as just another face in a crowd.

…

You walk slowly into the dusty subway. It feels empty, with the subway cart still missing and no one around to make noise. It is an echo in your history.

There is something new, however. In the corner by the phone is an old tape recorder plugged into what looks like a miniature version of what had been in the subway car. In front of it all is a single monitor on a desk.

Carefully, you approach, inspecting the screen.

It is black except for a single, blinking cursor.

When you step closer, it seems to awaken.

**Are you admin?**

A few new windows pop open. You blink at the lines of code scrolling in the background. If you’re supposed to type something into that thing, you’re screwed. So screwed.

You try a small nod. “One of them.”

A camera view pops up, and you are startled to see yourself. You haven’t looked in a mirror in a while.

A yellow box forms around your face, a small “Admin” label at the bottom corner of it.

**Who is other admin?**

You feel her name catch in your mouth, and you clear your throat before speaking. “Find Root.”

The cursor blinks a few times without response.

**…Last name?**

You shake your head. “Search archives for Root.”

It pulls up a picture of tree roots.

“A person, you idiot.”

After a few second delay, dozens of pictures of sports fans flood the screen. You narrow your eyes at it, confused until it hits you so hard you physically recoil at the word play. It’s people _rooting_ for a team. You groan and roll your eyes. Your first instinct is to whack it, but you redirect the punch into the desk, rattling all the technology on it.

“Need a hand?”

Your heart jumps, and immediately you spin around. There she is. Your ghost brought back. She certainly looks worse for wear. She is bruised and her clothes are not her own, too big around her shoulders and her waist, baggy legs and dirty shoes. Even so, her teasing smile is as vivacious as ever. She glances at her right arm tied up in a sling like a punchline.

“I can only give you one,” she jokes.

Her smile is warm.

And all those thoughts, those words you’d regretted not saying to her come back, swirling around loud and desperate in your head. Because this was your moment. You try to pick the right one, the perfect one, so of course what comes out of your mouth is less than desirable.

“Root.”

That was it.

Sameen Shaw, smooth international super spy, and all you could say was her name.

Nice.

“Hi beautiful,” she murmurs as she walks over, and for a moment you cannot tell who she is speaking to, you or the Machine. She strolls closer still, winking casually at you before turning fully toward the Machine, brushing her fingers along the top of the monitor before she sits gingerly. “Can you hear me?”

Your feet are stuck in place; you cannot move your gaze from her profile as she smiles that stupid sultry smile into the camera.

**Yes.**

“Good.” She says it encouragingly. “Run your debrief protocol, please.”

Code scrolls down the screen, and you are so _so_ glad she is there. You aren’t quite sure what you’d have done without her.

When its loading bar gets to about 60%, a black and yellow box appears around her face, and her smile could light a room.

“There’s my girl.”

…

You thought maybe Root would have trouble transitioning, from follower to creator, but she steps seamlessly between the two. She somehow has no quarrel viewing the Machine as both her child and her God.

You, on the other hand, are struggling with a lot of things.

First, you are struggling to keep up with the steady stream of numbers pounding the two of you. With Root sidelined, you have to do twice the running around with half the intel to go off of. The Machine is learning, but She isn’t at full capacity yet. Root bought herself a one handed keyboard to at least help with the delays of her information relay, but every second counted sometimes.

Second, you are struggling to maneuver an _already_ complicated relationship with Root, while also continuously being bombarded with jobs. The lack of free time has its perks, you won’t lie. It fills the void in your mind that likes to wander, that likes to question the past, that likes to _remember_.

But the down side is that you have no time to talk to Root about anything. About you and her. You always get home at the end of the night unsure whether or not you should crawl into her bed or yours.

She does her usual flirting. She touches your arm or face or leg whenever she can. She’s even kissed the side of your head in passing as she walks to go to sleep.

What you are not sure of is if you’re supposed to reciprocate all those things now.

That is not to say that she is not having her difficulties, too. She definitely is. The biggest thing being her staggering feelings of inadequacy. She is feeble and she knows it. And not just her arm. She is physically tired, her body fighting off infections and working hard to repair all of her damage.

She stays in the subway for horribly long amounts of time. She goes stir-crazy. She starts _crafting_ at one point she is so desperate for _something_ to do.

You aren’t complaining, though; you just feel bad for her. Having her in your ear all the time is comforting. A constant in your otherwise ridiculously unpredictable life.

Honestly, she reminds you of Harold, holed up at computers all day, hacking for information. She thinks the same thing, but neither of you speak the words out loud. That would be admitting Harold ever existed. That would be admitting _everything_ happened.

…

You work hard to keep focused on reality. What you know is real. You play back memories in every lull of the day, waiting in a car for a number, walking down the street. It keeps you sane because you still don’t…trust the world. And you only _kind of_ trust yourself, but it’s the best you’ve got.

Root gets used to your issues. At first she is surprised, but she falls into a steady rhythm of watching and waiting.

Any little thing sets you off. Every little detail that feels fake has you instantly on edge, waiting to see if Samaritan will screw up again, give you another sign that this world isn’t the real one.

Is the color of those bricks the same? At what angle was that lamp tilted? Did it get Root’s gait correct or has she always walked that way?

The questions buzz in your head so often you sometimes forget they aren’t normal. Until you see something wrong. And then they scream louder.

“The _keys_ ,” you shout, hands flying to your neck to feel your skin. ( _does it feel real?_ ) “They were _on_ the book, not next to it.”

Instantly she is there, cupping your face even as you back away unsteadily.

“Sweetie,” she murmurs gently, trying to sound condescending. “They’re just keys.”

You point, anger swirling up your chest. “They _weren’t_ there, I _know_ it.”

“I know,” she breathes with an assuring nod. “But I might have bumped them, okay? Bear might have knocked into the table. But I don’t remember. I’m _sorry_.”

You narrow your eyes at them over her shoulder.

“Look at me,” she commands. Her voice is calm and even and you cannot help but flit your gaze to her unwavering eyes.

“They are just keys. They are not a tear in reality.”

Your heart beats faster and the room feels smaller and smaller, but you keep your eyes on hers, and they do not move. They do not lie.

But what if she’s fake too? Wouldn’t she want you to believe everything was okay so you wouldn’t run?

You take a deep breath. She looks so earnest and her hand feels so soft against your cheek. You slide your hand up from your neck overtop of hers. She smiles and opens her fingers to allow yours to fit between.

“It’s just a shape,” you say flatly.

Her eyes light up, and she exhales a small laugh. “Yeah. Just a shape.”

You inhale deeply, exhaling slowly, and it feels right. It feels real enough.

“Not like an arrow though, huh?” you flirt with a small smirk, an air of teasing in your voice.

She blinks, surprised, and immediately she flushes. You can even feel her hand against your cheek getting hot. At least before she pulls it away. “Where did you hear that?”

Your mouth opens and you grin wider, flashing teeth and smugness. “Your Machine didn’t tell you what she said to me, huh?”

She swallows thickly. “No. I was a little…unconscious, Sameen.”

You shrug, still smirking. “It doesn’t matter, though, right? Just noise in the system.”

She blinks again, flustered enough that she has no smart remark to make, and you brush past her feeling triumphant and, although you hate to admit it, almost happy.

She _does_ have a weakness.

…

The day she takes her sling off is a day of relief and celebration. It isn’t the answer to your problems, not by a longshot. She can’t exactly _use_ her arm yet, her muscle mass decreased exponentially and bone still weak, but it’s a start. It’s a step in the healing process.

She begs for the Machine to give her Godmode access, and she is denied over and over. The Machine will not say why, though. She just calls the pay phone and they end up having a very long, very _circular_ argument until Root hangs up, defeated.

She works out every day. Stretching and lifting weights, running as often as she can. As far as you can tell, she seems to be perpetually covered in sweat. (and she has to flirt with the girl in 2b in the apartment complex across the street to get access to a shower)

She keeps at it for months. Every day. Twenty pushups and thirty weight reps, over and over and over. You can hear it even when you aren’t around. She is always out of breath when you call back for information.

She practices combat on a dummy, just like you taught her. You smile every time she throws a roundhouse kick at it. Nearly breaks it every time and your heart always feels a little lighter.

She pushes through the pain and the soreness, and never once does she complain. Although she _does_ play music really loudly starting around the fifth month. You think maybe the Machine is trying to reason with her, tell her to lay off a bit. You know you’ve been tempted to do the same on more than one occasion. But you know Root. She’s too stubborn, and so you let her go.

She breaks the dummy and moves onto you.

Needless to say, you gain your fair share of bruises in the weeks to follow. But it’s for a good cause. She channels her anger into it (that much you can feel).

As her strength grows, your will to stay does too. You want this life.

That just gives you more to lose, though.

…

You wish the worst of your reality problems are moving keys. But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Honestly, you grapple with reality far more often than you like. It catches up to you most at night; the dreams make everything harder to keep track of.

They punch holes in your otherwise pretty decent lie– no, _life_ , your otherwise pretty decent _life_.

This dream isn’t anything particularly new, but it is much more vivid than most of them. You are just living your new life, the one you are rebuilding with Root, and suddenly you are awake back under Samaritan’s control, another day another simulation failure.

And for some reason, this time, _this time_ , it makes your world shatter.

How _long_ would these _bastards_ let the simulation run? Would they really let you live out an entire lifetime simulation just to _really_ fuck you up? _Just_ in case you don’t slip up and tip them off?

You wake up screaming, pissed off and frustrated, banging your fist into the concrete wall beside you until your knuckles bleed.

“ _You won’t get her_ ,” you shout at the wall, hoping to God they hear you. Maybe if they believe you they’ll just give up and kill you.

“Shaw?” Root mumbles sleepily from somewhere in the dark. “I’m right here.”

She sounds so real. You squint into the darkness, and she steps cautiously closer. You can see she has on a big t-shirt with a simple “hot stuff” scrawled across the front and a pair of bunny slippers. Her hair is pulled into a messy bun, and she tousles it with a yawn as she sits down on the edge of your bed.

But your head is screaming at you _not real, not real, not real_ , and with an angry groan, you shove the heels of your palms against your temples to try muffling the voice.

She cringes at the sight of the blood on your hands. She pretends she never even noticed, though.

“It was a dream,” she soothes, rubbing your leg closest to her. “Do you _really_ want me getting into another metaphysical analysis with you?”

You roll your eyes.

“Not exactly.”

She smirks. “Then lay back down.”

You consider going for your weapon instead, but something about her earnest eyes stops you. So you obey, rolling onto your stomach. She scoots up a little more, tucking the hair behind your ear with her good arm.

“Where’s Reese when you need him?” your jaw trembles with your subsiding anger as you try to crack a joke. “I could do with a good two word pep talk.”

Terror flashes in her eyes. Had you said something wrong?

“Sameen…” she starts gently, like a kiss before a slap. “John’s…dead.”

Flashes of him lying on the ground beneath you flash across your eyes.

“Shit,” you breathe as guilt twists tight inside your chest, weaving through your ribs and pulling them inward. “I tried to fight it. I…I tried.”

You squeeze your eyes shut tightly, but all you can see is the flash of your muzzle as you pull the trigger.

“ _Sameen_ ,” she says it more forceful than before.

“Get out of here, Root, I’m a danger.”

“ _Hey_ ,” she snaps roughly, shaking your shoulder until you open your eyes again. “It wasn’t you. Come back to me.”

Your mind is reeling. You don’t remember how he died if it wasn’t by your hand.

“What’s real?” you whisper into the sheets, gritting your teeth as a wave of pain shoots through your head.

She strokes your back through your sweat-slicked shirt. “Are you asking me?”

“I-I don’t know,” you strain, hands in fists and arms flexed tight. “I can’t remember if you’re real either.”

She frowns, but forces it away. “You said the simulations had a pattern.”

You nod; that much you had told her, but you do not elaborate. You can’t. The more you keep to yourself, the more cards you have to play with.

“Ask me about the past,” she commands gently.

For a moment, you actually consider it. But the moment you begin playing out where it might lead, you shake your head and laugh bitterly.

“Root, this is stupid.”

Her finger hesitates in its movement along your back.

“I’m just trying to help.” She sounds hurt.

You sigh. It is deep and tired. You should at least humor her for a little. “How did we meet?”

“I believe an iron was involved.” She smiles seductively, trying to lighten the mood.

Your lips twitch upward for a moment, but the feeling that goes with it never presents itself. “I-I meant, how did we re-meet.”

“Oh.” She traces a pattern over your shirt with her middle finger. “In a park.”

“That happened a few times.”

She cocks her head to the side. “You put a gun to your head.”

Not very helpful.

“That happened more than a few times.”

Beside you, she physically recoils, but recovers, focusing back on the patterns she is drawing.

“I put a gun to my head.”

Your body tenses, motionless for a moment. You definitely remember that. And thus far, that is the timeline you have most easily been able to trace in your memory. There have been no time gaps, no muddled details. That memory is one of your only recent memories that you actually kind of _believe_ happened.

But you have to make sure, you _have_ to.

“What happened next?”

She shrugs.

“I took you to the park under the bridge.”

You narrow your eyes, trying not to let her know you’re testing her.

“We didn’t go back to the safehouse?”

“No.”

“We didn’t have sex?”

Her mouth had opened before she had fully heard the question, and she stops mid-breath.

You frown into the silence, turning over to more fully look at her. “Root?”

Her cheeks are red and her mouth is hanging open, a crease between her brows where she has furrowed them tightly downward.

“No, we haven’t.” It’s quiet.

You sit up a little more. Do you believe her? You trace your memories, but there are _so_ many that end with you and her, naked and high on pain, only to come crashing down in the nicest of pillow talks. Those had been the moments you had always wished were real.

The memories fill your mind you can’t _possibly_ believe that they hadn’t happened at least once in real life. “How many scars do I have?”

Root’s silence is longer. “I don’t know.”

“Tattoos?”

“I don’t…” She can’t even finish the sentence. She looks down at your body, as though willing herself to see through her dark shirt to the skin beneath. But she just sees a black shirt, and her face falls. She looks distraught. She balls her hands into fists, holding them against her chest like armor.

You know that look. Shit, you know that look and this isn’t a simulation. This couldn’t be. No computer could ever get that face right.

“Hey,” you say quietly. “Hey, come on.”

“I’m okay.” The words sound flat, but when you really looks at her, she smiles, loving and assuring.

It’s so damn believable, you doesn’t have the heart to argue.

“Are you okay?” she asks, looking for some reassurance.

You nod tiredly. “Yeah. Go back to sleep.”

…

She goes three days without touching you. She’s all business, no pleasure and you _know_ that is just not her style.

Had you hurt her feelings?

Was she upset that you had mind sex with an artificial intelligence pretending to be her, _against_ your will, as a form of _torture_?

Well…when you put it like that, it does sound kind of offensive.

You run your hand over your face, forcing some composure.

She’s got herself buried in the job, in the numbers, to the point where if you are in the subway, she is out on the street, only returning to get a change of clothes.

She comes in like a whirlwind, already stripping out of her jacket before she crosses the threshold.

“Hey.” You feel almost nervous.

“Hey,” she answers with a forced lilt mimicking happiness.

“Are you okay?”

She frowns as she passes you, as though confused.

“Of course,” she brushes off. “Why?”

You almost feel stupid for thinking something is off, but you aren’t giving up just yet. You follow her step for step as she heads for her alcove, digging around in her drawers for a change of clothes.

“I dunno, you seem…distant?”

She glances over at you, and for a second you think you see terror at being caught, but she quickly pushes it down, reaching over and touching your arm. Your body breathes a sigh of relief at the contact. “Any closer and I’d be on top of you.”

At least it was a joke.

But it wasn’t a solution.

“Please talk to me Root.”

“I am.”

“No.” you roughly grab her good elbow as she turns to go. “You’re not. You’re not flirting with me, you’re not cracking jokes. You’re not even _smiling_.”

At this, she smiles a weak, sad smile. “You do care.”

You scowls. “That’s not-“ you cut yourself off with a groan. “That’s not the _point_.”

You don’t deny it, though. You give her that much.

“Is it what happened last night?”

Root shrugs, and you feel the inevitability of this game coming to an end. Your game of chicken is teetering dangerously close to a cliff face; it’s no longer about who can better pretend that nothing is wrong. You and she are both _clearly_ very capable of turning a blind eye. But it was bleeding away from the job and bleeding _into_ your personal life, and that was where you drew the line.

“ _Root_ ,” you try again, and it’s not forceful, but pleading. A question.

Her apathy falters, and you see the concern in her eyes for just a moment, just a _relieving_ moment.

She shrugs again, but this time it’s less certain, and she bobs her head in a small affirmation. An acknowledgement that something is wrong but that is _it_.

“I don’t want to do this,” she whispers, and you immediately catch the fear weaved deep into it.

“The…the numbers?” you guess.

She shakes her head.

“It’ll collapse.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and squeezes her eyes tightly shut, trying desperately not to cry. “we-we’ll collapse,” she says it quieter, under her breath, but you hear it perfectly.

You know this is not the emotion you should be feeling, but it forces you to laugh. She blinks at you, startled and terrified.

“Root. I literally told you I don’t know if you’re real or not.”

She frowns like she doesn’t see the relevance.

“And you stayed.”

She gives the same look.

You laugh again, and she looks conflicted. She likes your laugh, but she isn’t quite sure why it’s happening.

“If we can get through my entire collapse of reality, I think we can survive a little miscommunication.”

This time, you can’t read her face. She inspects you for a long moment before speaking.

“That’s easy for you to say. This conversation might or might not be real.”

You squint at her, and her eyes are laughing. Even the corner of her mouth twitches upward for just a moment. She was… _screwing with you_.

You grin is broad and your chest loosens a tension you hadn’t previously been aware of.

“Okay then hit me with your worst.”

She looks hesitant, looking down at her hands and picking at her fingers. She isn’t sure where to start.

Carefully, you reach over and grasp her hands until she cannot fidget, and she peers down at you. And for the first time in a long few months, you think maybe you’re ready for this conversation too.

What you get is _not_ a conversation.

She pulls you in for a kiss, just as hard and desperate as your first, laced with just as much fear as though this were her last chance. She tugs you in with the lapels of your jacket, fists balling up the fabric so tightly you have to stand on your toes to keep in line with them.

But oh do you keep with her. Your heart pounds because you _know_ this dance and your body accepts this. It _needs_ it. Anticipation spikes in your blood, and you kiss her back hard, hands falling to her hips for contact and balance.

She steps into your hold, and your hands slip to the small of her back, pressing her hips to you as she kisses you again, parting your lips with a gentle tongue before catching your lip with her teeth.

It isn’t rough. Not nearly as painful as you remember.

You dig your nails into the small of her back, and she gasps, hard and surprised into your mouth, and even though her hips roll in response, she does not mirror the violence. Despite how delighted the twist of her lips is, her next kiss is softer.

And you are frustrated.

Winning a one-sided fight is no victory.

Still, you try, pushing her arms down so hard she has to release your jacket. You push her hard enough that she has to take a step back, slamming into the wall, and her laugh is just a rush of air, pushed from her lungs from the bricks at her back. It satisfies something small inside you, but all that does is make you itch to sate it completely.

You kiss her hard, using your hips to press her more into the wall, and when her hands slip into your hair, you grab one and yank it free. Your other hand goes to her neck, using just enough pressure to give her warning. If she wants this she will fight your way. She opens her mouth to take in some air, and you catch the smirk she is trying so desperately to hide, but you wait until she does what you want.

Slowly, she retracts her hand from your hair, and immediately you kiss her again, parted lips and heavy breaths. She grins into the kiss, and for a moment you think maybe you won, for she sucks your bottom lip, then bites until it twinges painfully.

But, oh are you wrong. She uses your hand still on her neck as leverage, twisting it until you are forced to follow, spinning around until _your_ back is the one pressed into the wall. All her strength training certainly paid off. She grips one of your wrists firmly as she bites your ear, exhaling against it. The hair down your arms stands on end.

“Sameen,” she scolds, just above a whisper. “You are working very hard to ruin this for me.”

She bites your neck just below your jaw fleetingly, kissing it gently after. Your body flushes, your hips rolling against her for some relief. She allows it, but tsks in your ear.

“Now either you be good and do this my way, or we don’t do it at all.”

It dawns on you that this is _not_ a one-sided fight, but a very two-sided one that you are _losing_. She may not be rough, but she is strong and willing to prove it.

“I have been waiting a long time for this,” she punctuates the sentence with a firm press of her fingers on the inseam of your pants, and _God_ does it feel like you have too.

She nuzzles the skin behind your ear, trailing her nose down until she finds another spot on your neck to scrape her teeth against teasingly. “Believe me when I say we’ll get to all that pain I promised you,” she assures, low and fervent, and your mind cannot help but flash to the large number of handcuff and iron innuendoes she’s made. “But,” the word is sharp, “that is for _later_.”

She bites the tender part of your neck, and you hiss, first in pain but then she sucks the skin, running her tongue over it in a pattern that twists a knot into your stomach.

She brushes her lips slowly up your neck, kissing your jaw once. “Clear?”

The word hangs over you like an ultimatum, heavy with her power. It is so damn _sexy_. You’ve been with a lot of people. A lot of very strong, very large people, and never in your life have you felt so _matched_.

You do not nod. Instead you use your fingers to tilt her head back to your face, kissing her firmly. Not hard or rough, but not soft. She isn’t getting that.

The way she beams against your lips tells you she hadn’t _wanted_ soft.

And, having reached some sort of understanding, your clothes start going, first your shirt and then your bra, followed by hers. She doesn’t let you get farther though, for she is back against you, deep kisses and shallow presses of her hips. You unconsciously mirror her, rocking your hips subtly with each of her movements; the friction is so teasing, enough for a jolt of pleasure and a swell of relief before it comes back twice as strong, twice as desperate to be sated.

She is a fan of nails, you quickly find. Using them, that is. She sinks them as far into the skin of your back as they will go without actually breaking it, dragging them down so hard and slow it burns. Each time she does it, you suck in a breath, exhaling shakily as each new scratch pools new heat between your legs.

She kisses along your collarbone, scraping her teeth against it just to let you know she can. The threat of it makes you shudder. She is quick to made good on that threat, kissing softly down your chest only to bite hard at the swell of your breast.

A moan catches in your throat, and you swallow it down, closing your eyes to try holding your composure.

She kisses every one of your scars, deliberate and slow, much gentler than she is with everything else.

“Sameen,” she whispers your name when you should be whispering hers. It is reverent, her breath ghosting over your stomach so teasing it makes a shudder roll up your spine. She nips at one of your hip bones, dragging her nails down the curve of your back as she drops to her knees.

She kisses beneath your navel, unbuttoning your pants and pulling them down with a few aided tugs. She presses another kiss along the edge of your underwear, hooking her thumbs underneath them at your hips and pulling them down.

As they drop to the floor, she strokes her way up the backs of your thighs, sliding her hands smoothly up the curve of your ass. She keeps them there, kissing the top of one of your thighs first, then another along your inner thigh.

It’s so _agonizing_ , and in _any_ other circumstance, you would press her closer. But you are not playing chicken with a woman who already _won_ a game of chicken with her pistol to her throat. If she said she would stop, you know she will.

Instead, you clench your fists, digging your nails into your palms until you’re sure they will bleed. But it relieves some of the itching need.

The first dip of her tongue seems to _fuel_ your arousal instead of fulfill it. You suck in a breath through your teeth, white-knuckled and overwhelmed. She nudges your leg up onto her shoulder for working room, and she uses every bit of it.

Not at first, though.

No, she starts slow, long licks and dull pressure, enough to make a girl squirm. You fight it as long as you can though, teeth gritted and head thrown back, moans curling up your throat. She rarely comes up for air, timing her breathing well with the strokes of her tongue, increasing her pressure as she settles into a rhythm.

Your lower abdomen twinges with every lick until it is continuous, concentrating lower and lower until you feel like you are going to implode if she doesn’t do something else. Your skin feels hot, humming with sensitivity as she pulls you closer, tilts her chin up higher. She uses her fingers as well as her tongue, and when she presses them into you, your legs wobble.

You grip the corner of the wall with one hand to steady yourself, the other finding a satisfying grip in her hair. Apparently she likes it too, for she gasps when you grip harder, only to redouble her efforts back on you.

She curls her fingers with every stroke and everything builds up so quickly. Too quickly you say, as though you hadn’t been there for at _least_ twenty minutes in writhing agony dangling over an edge you didn’t think you’d ever fall over.

She gets you there, though. She just keeps her rhythm and her pressure, unwaveringly steady until you feel heat snap from your abdomen down your legs and straight up, setting off a trembling in your legs and a tingling in your feet. It ripples up your spine in searing waves, and you have to clamp down on every muscle in your body to keep from jerking hard enough to knock you over.

Even after all the tremors subside, your heart continues pounding, your lungs burning for air despite your heavy breathing.

She helps you remove the pants still around one ankle and coaxes you into bed. She follows, and it is just you and her sharing air in the small single bed.

You lay there for a long while, quiet and unmoving, just feeling the rise and fall of her chest underneath your arm.

You do not have words to tell her how you feel. That’s not different, though. What’s different is you have this sudden nagging feeling that you _need_ to have words to express them to her. And you know the words that are _supposed_ to fit, like happiness and satisfaction or, god forbid, _love_.

Every test run of those words in your head though, feel wrong. Like a square peg in a round hole. And it is _frustrating._

“Sameen?” she looks worried, her eyebrows quirked down as she inspects your face.

Her voice is delicate like icicles and the simple sound snaps the word you are looking for right in your face.

You feel _real_.

Something you have not been able to say in months.

In a moment of sheer relief and appreciation, you stretch over and kiss her hard. It is wrong – too rough and angry – but you don’t care. You inhale deeply, cupping her jaw as a sort of hold to keep her close, to keep her lips to yours for just a moment longer. Slowly, you break the kiss with a careful exhale, and you can feel her smile where your hand is on her cheeks. She stretches up to give you a small extra kiss against your nose.

And in that moment, the intense obligation to vocalize your feelings is gone. You don’t need to say it. She knows. She has to.

“You’re a freak,” you murmur, stroking her cheek once and cracking a grin.

She raises her eyebrows for a moment, smirking despite herself. “I haven’t even brought out the zip ties,” she equips, turning her face to press a gentle kiss against your palm before gently biting it. You push her away and she is grinning happily. She turns her head back though, and your hand falls naturally into its previous resting place against her face and neck.

…

You spend a week in this strange ritual of shuffling beds. Sometimes you sleep in yours, sometimes she is there and sometimes she isn’t. Sometimes you sleep in _hers_. There is no pattern to it, not a discernable one anyway. Sometimes there’s sex, sometimes there isn’t.

Either way it’s all unfamiliar territory. You’re a love and leave kinda girl.

You wake up in the middle of the night when you hear strangled noises. You go from half-awake to completely aware in half a second, on your feet and reaching for your gun. As you near Root’s side of the room, you don’t find anyone else. Just her. Curled up tight into herself, whimpering and clutching her fists.

Her face is stained red in blotches and streaks, and in the light you see the tears still balanced on the curve of her cheeks.

You sigh, half in relief, and set your gun down on the nearest table before nudging your way into the tight coil of her body.

She unfolds only long enough to allow it before she tightens again, pulling herself against you with surprising force. She doesn’t stop crying.

“Root,” you whisper, gently prodding at her side. “C’mon, Root you gotta wake up.”

The effect is not as gentle as you had hoped. She jerks awake, and instantly she is sobbing, hard and ragged against your neck.

This is the first time you’ve seen her so broken. You had thought she was fine.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, trying to choke down the sobs by clenching her jaw to tightly the air can’t escape. That doesn’t stop the hiccups or the trembling of her chest, but it seems to stem the flow of tears.

“It’s okay,” you say, slightly surprised. You didn’t mind. You knew her feelings had always been flaring and wild. It wasn’t anything _new_. Although, after thinking a moment, you aren’t sure you’d seen her cry more than a few tears ever.

She releases you, wiping at her face with her bent wrist.

“Are you…okay?”

The answer is so obvious you probably shouldn’t have answered the question, but even still you get a lie.

“It was just a dream, Sameen.” She says it so firmly, making sure to force out any waver from the tears. She has had to be the one keeping the both of you up while you sorted out your problems that you never even considered that she had any.

You aren’t sure what to say. Were you supposed to ask about her feelings? Let her tell you on her own? Give her the opportunity to?

This… _whatever_ it was, was hard. (this _relationship_?)

“Do you, uhh…” you frown, glancing over at her in the dark before continuing. “…wanna talk about it?”

The silence is long and heavy, the only thing filling it her unsteady breath.

“I…” she hesitates, and something in her eyes tells you she has already given up. “I just thought you were still gone.”

She leaves it at that, curling back up on her bed and turning to face the wall.

You stay where you are on the edge of the bed until she falls back to sleep. You stay until _you_ fall asleep, and you wake up with a list of numbers on her pillow, a few tiny hearts scrawled into the margins like nothing had happened at all.

…

“Can you…show me something?” you ask the Machine one night when Root is off scouting a number.

She pops up a window of Root at a coffee shop, the pink of sunrise spilling in from the windows behind her.

You shake your head.

“I mean, yeah, but…before. Show me…what I missed.”

The cursor blinks a few times before she answers. “Timeline?”

You only have to think for a moment before you heart begins to sink.

How long _were_ you gone? A month? A _year_? You…you don’t know. At one time, you had thought it to be nine months. But you don’t trust your perception of time anymore.

You press your lips together, leaning back in the chair. “Stock market crash. Start there.”

The Machine delivers, from the very moment they stepped foot from the stock market, you see a fire in her eyes.

Rampage in her heart.

Your heart sinks down into your gut as you watch her teeter on the edge of that skyscraper, arguing with a God over _you_ no less. She is desperate and alone and she has nothing to lose because she had already _lost_ it all. You don’t know how you missed that in her.

She had nothing. That’s what made her so valuable.

You can still hear her in your head chastising you for your recklessness, all the times you went off the reservation a little too far. And yet here she is. That same woman lived for these _months_ with not a single care for her life. No, it wasn’t just the ledge. She walks willingly into traps, fights angry instead of smart. _This_ is the same girl who nearly cried on the street in the middle of New York City because you were being a little hasty.

And you are shocked as the footage unfolds in front of you, hour by hour.

She cries so many nights. Cries in front of the computer, cries herself to sleep. The Machine speeds these up, but even timelapsed it feels like hours go by just watching her sob into her hands, her desk.

She was broken but she put herself together with duct tape and glue and stood up again and again.

You cannot count the number of people you watch her torture. Some is just audio, but that doesn’t make it any less vivid.

 _“Tell me where Sameen is.”_ She is cold. Stone cold and tired, defeated by the world around her. The apathy in her eyes is suffocating as she Tasers him over and over.

 _“Where is she?!”_ There is desperation in her voice, an anger in her lungs as she lunges at her captive, drill in hand.

Images of her grappling with Martine, vicious and _unforgiving_ with every punch, every grip around her throat. You see the undeniable sight of joy in her eyes as Martine’s body crumples at her bedside. Triumphant where defeat used to live.

She knows she will win this fight.

You watch her follow every lead, fight Harold and John and the Machine until her voice is hoarse and her tears are long gone, until somebody _listens_.

You brush your fingers against your lips as you watch her send that message to you, the message that saved your life.

You laugh sadly. She seemed to save your life a lot.

You watch her walking in the park, watch yourself take her down like the enemy. Watch her scramble to her feet in your moment of sheer confusion and shock.

“ _Shaw!_ ”

Her voice is so happy even in her breathlessness. Your name was weightless on her lips.

You remember how it felt in her arms. God it felt so good, you hadn’t _wanted_ it to feel so good. It had been that much harder to pull yourself away. Your throat tightens. Your gun had felt so heavy; you had forgotten for a second why living in a fake world would be so bad.

But looking up into her tear stained face had reminded you that the _real_ Root needed you. Turns out you were both right and wrong. The real Root _had_ needed you, but she was right there.

And you don’t know it but you are crying as you watch your standoff in the park, your gun to your temple and hers to her throat.

It looks so strange, at such a stagnant angle from so far away, an unclear mass of pixels on a screen. But it is so clear. So clear and you didn’t see.

It wasn’t just a threat to her. It wasn’t just a play to talk you down. If you pulled that trigger, she would have too. Without a doubt. Without a single regret in her world, she would have killed herself even if you weren’t alive to see.

You blink and _finally_ you feel the tears, and you brush them away with the pads of your fingers.

In that moment, you aren’t sure who suffered more. You or her. You may have been tortured, but at least it was with purpose. At least there was a goal. The _world_ tortured her. Chewed her up and spit her out with no mercy, no rhyme or reason and she just got up and kept fighting a ghost with her bare hands.

You turn away from the screen and the Machine returns the Monitor to the coffee shop.

“Is that what you wanted?” She asks.

You manage to nod, wiping a few more of your tears away. “Thank you.”

It is solemn.

You tap your com. “Root?”

“Yes?” she sounds a little hesitant, but nothing too off.

“We…we need to talk.”

“Now is…not a good time.” She sounds strained this time.

Frowning, you glance back at the monitor. She is no longer in her seat in the café.

“Where are you?” You ask, sitting up in your seat and leaning toward the computer.

“Turns out,” she says through gritted teeth, “our number was quite an expert on counter-surveillance. He made me and I had to…engage.”

You sigh, closing your eyes. “Engage? Root, no…”

You hear crashes and shouting in the background. And gunfire.

“Root…” you groan.

“It’s okay!” she says brightly and out of breath. “I’ve got it under control.”

There’s a lot of shuffling and a few more muffled yells. You put your head in your hands.

“What did you want to talk about?” she sounds completely serious, still straining with something or, well, someone.

You snort. “It can wait.”

“It sounded serious,” she prods with gentle curiosity.

“I…” This isn’t the right time, and you know it, but it’s _Root_ and she won’t let it go. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I was so caught up in my bullshit that I couldn’t see yours. And I’m sorry that I’d rather…forget the past than face it.”

She laughs sadly, and a few more gunshots go off.

“Shaw,” she soothes, the strain in her voice finally gone, “I’m fine.”

“But you _weren’t_. Not when I was gone.”

She pauses, the static of the microphone filling the silence. “I wasn’t. But I got by. And I got you _back_.”

“Most of me, anyway,” you mutter under your breath.

“ _All_ of you,” she corrects gently. “and I love every bit.”

You are the one who falls silent now.

Love.

Your chest stirs for a moment.

“I, uhh,” you clear your throat; something had lodged itself in there (something _real_ , it had to be). “I’m glad we had this talk.”

You can hear the beaming in her voice when she speaks. “Are you flustered?” she teases.

“Just-“ you groan and shake your head, even though she cannot see. “Just take care of the number, will you?”

“Yes ma’am,” she agrees, playfully serious in an overly gruff voice.

You smirk. “Go easy on him, will you? I don’t like having to explain all the Taser burns on them when they wake up.”

There is a long pause.

“Fine.”


End file.
